Black clergy gathering to fight gay matrimony

Published 4:00 am, Saturday, May 15, 2004

Conservative evangelical groups -- including the Christian men's movement, Promise Keepers -- are mobilizing African American church leaders for a renewed campaign against same-sex marriage.

Some of the nation's best-known black clergymen will come together in Washington, D.C., on Monday to denounce homosexual unions -- the same day judges in Massachusetts begin issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. The Supreme Court refused Friday to intervene and block clerks from issuing these marriage licenses.

The gathering on Capitol Hill will be followed next weekend with a large rally in Texas called "Not on My Watch."

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Organizers of both events challenge comparisons many gay rights leaders have made between the campaign for same-sex marriage and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

"Gays have never gone through slavery nor been put down and abused like blacks," said Bishop Frank Stewart of the Zoe Christian Fellowship, a group of 21 churches in Southern California. "It's an insult to use that parallel."

In San Francisco, a coalition of seven African American pastors called San Francisco Tabernacle Clergy have prepared their own joint statement condemning same-sex marriage and comparisons to the civil rights movement.

Such comparisons, the clergymen said, "are offensive and belittle the cause of freedom and racial justice."

But they make similar arguments based on their understanding of the Bible and experience in black churches.

"As African American pastors, teachers, counselors and leaders, we see and live with the horrors of a declining society," they state. "Same-sex marriage would serve to advance the decline of marriage and ... family values in the African American community."

Of course, not all African American church leaders in San Francisco agree.

The Rev. Cecil Williams, the longtime leader of Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, said Christian right leaders mobilizing black clergy are "attempting to divert attention from the real issue."

"They need to open up to other perspectives," Williams said. "I've said this (the gay rights movement) is a part of the civil rights movement. The issue is to bring out freedom in people's lives."

On this issue, however, Williams appears outnumbered by black clergy opposed to same-sex marriage.

"It would be a historical error to equate the civil rights struggle for racial equality with the movement for civil accommodations based solely upon sexual behavior," said Promise Keepers President Thomas Fortman, an African American who grew up in the civil rights movement and was named the head of the evangelical men's movement last October.

By actively backing the May 22 "Not on My Watch" rally in Arlington, Texas, Fortman gives same-sex marriage opponents the resources of Promise Keepers -- which has brought an estimated 5 million men to stadium-sized rallies over the past 13 years.

Meanwhile, another powerful conservative evangelical lobby, the Traditional Values Coalition, has lined up some nationally known African American church leaders for the Monday start of "a state-by-state grassroots effort to pass legislation protecting marriage."

Price presides over the 27,000-member Crenshaw Christian Center and "Faithdome" in South Central Los Angeles, a large geodesic dome that seats 10, 000 worshipers.

In an interview Friday afternoon, Price said the prospect of same-sex marriage has inspired his first foray into political activism.

"I don't have the words to describe the importance of this issue," he said. "This is important to every ethnic Christian community."

While he said he has "nothing against homosexual individuals," Price said his reading of the Bible tells him that "marriage is a union created and recognized by God" and that "homosexuality is an abomination."

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